Summary

In Chapter 19, Louis drove Addie, Jamie, and Ruth to a hamburger joint then to a softball game. Afterward, Louis told Addie that Jamie had never played catch. The next day, Louis bought Jamie a glove and played with him in the yard. That night, Louis decided to buy Jamie a dog and the next day they bought him a collie mix with a plastic tube on its right front foot. Jamie named the dog Bonny after a girl in his class that he liked. Jamie slept in his room that night with Bonny in his bed. He did not come into Addie’s room crying that night.

Chapter 21 saw Louis revealing his former aspiration to be a poet to Addie. His poems were, as he put it, “awful little things” that strained his already bruised relationship with Diane, his wife, because she was...